"Boxing is the art of hitting an opponent from the furthest distance away, exposing the least amount of your body while getting into position to punch with maximum leverage and not getting hit."
Kenny Weldon

Nice fight! That guy should've gotten a point deducted for how many times his mouthguard came out. They will deduct points for that nonsense at a lot of events here since fighters will do it almost intentionally to stall the fight.

Your composure looked a lot better in this fight than it did in the last fight I saw of yours. I think the 5 rounder suits you a lot better since the pacing is more controlled. You maintained yourself well throughout the fight and stuck to your game plan and did a great job utilizing your height advantage.

As far as criticism, my biggest one is still ring generalship... which I think is really just something that's going to take it's time to develop as you become more comfortable in the ring. You still move around the ring without any real consciousness of where you are in the ring and make no effort to control it. Remember that even if you've got someone's head a nice tight double neck tie, you can't do much with it when you're up against the corner or ropes. Also, you need to be controlling the range with more than just push kicks and clinching.

Just a little step off line here and there will make your fights go so much easier. Too much standing in front of your opponent, allowing them dictate how much they're willing to try and move you back. In this case, your opponent didn't have much answer for your big height advantage since his only strategy was to come straight in, but he was still able to use his lower center of gravity to put you on your heels, keeping you from being to do a lot of effective offense. I also really would love to see you start really making use of that jab and always keeping it in their face to frustrate these shorter guys.

The other thing is that you're way over eager with the double neck tie. I can see you're excited as hell to get those knees to the face, but you could have so much more control over your opponent if you were more active with your clinching. By this I mean utilizing different grips to get maximum control over your opponent. My recommendation is go for the grips that will give you the most control so you can toss your opponent around at will, then when he's getting worn out and frustrated, do a quick switch to neck grip for that knee to the head.

Remember, the shot that knocks you out is the one you don't see coming. If all you're trying to do is go for that knee to face KO, he's always watching out for it and you're never going to get that flush shot across the jaw to put his lights out. Also, you've got the worst control and balance out of any grip doing the double neck tie, which is why you're getting pushed all around the ring throughout the fight. If he knew anything about clinching, he could be dumping you left and right because you've got so little balance in this position.

I highly recommend you work on these two things (ring/distance control and clinch grips) and I think you'll be well on your way to being ready for that pro fight career. Your skills are really coming along and you've obviously got a lot of natural ability. I look forward to seeing your next fight (especially if you do what I tell you, damn it!! :P)

Thanks, my coach has given some similar advice to me. I'm really looking forward to taking my clinch game past the basic level over in Thailand. With opponents who have no clue how to clinch i want to be able to finish it in the first round.

For the next 4+ months I'm training boxing 4 nights a week instead though :). My girlfriend moved up to the sunshine coast and the only MT gym nearby is the one this guy is from, so I'm taking the time to fix my holes.

Last edited by Sang; 11/16/2010 12:20am at .

"Boxing is the art of hitting an opponent from the furthest distance away, exposing the least amount of your body while getting into position to punch with maximum leverage and not getting hit."
Kenny Weldon

Thanks, my coach has given some similar advice to me. I'm really looking forward to taking my clinch game past the basic level over in Thailand. With opponents who have no clue how to clinch i want to be able to finish it in the first round.

For the next 4+ months I'm training boxing 4 nights a week instead though :). My girlfriend moved up to the sunshine coast and the only MT gym nearby is the one this guy is from, so I'm taking the time to fix my holes.

Specifically request a clinic in ring generalship when you're doing the boxing training. There's really no better way to learn strategic footwork and ring control than from a good boxing coach, so this will be a great. Isn't Boonchoo (JWP's gym) on the sunshine coast? I could be totally mistaken about this. I know he lives in Surfer's Paradise which I seemed to recall being the sunshine coast. JWP actually has awesome clinch abilities (Buakaw totally failed to outdo him in the clinch when they fought back in 2004, and that's typically how Buakaw tore up K-1 fighters back in the day).

Once you get comfortable with sneaky clinch tactics, you will smash your opponents... particularly if you get that 4 month ring generalship clinic!

Boonchu is on the Gold Coast, too far to drive. I'd probably not go there if i was closer anyway unless i could invest a few years in the area. The gym suffers from over-popularity. Awesome if you can get them to invest time in you of course, but you have to prove you are worth it first.

There is one gym I'd love to train at 45 minutes away though, Mad X. Its run by Eli Madigan's father and has an incredible fight team. The only issue is I'm still loyal to my current gym (i teach beginners and train there twice a week), and Mad X is invite only. Not the kind of place you can just train casually.

Boxing with a little BJJ on the side seems the best option, I'm hoping when i mention ring generalship he knows what the hell I'm talking about. We don't have the same quality of boxing coaches around here.

"Boxing is the art of hitting an opponent from the furthest distance away, exposing the least amount of your body while getting into position to punch with maximum leverage and not getting hit."
Kenny Weldon

Boonchu is on the Gold Coast, too far to drive. I'd probably not go there if i was closer anyway unless i could invest a few years in the area. The gym suffers from over-popularity. Awesome if you can get them to invest time in you of course, but you have to prove you are worth it first.

That definitely makes sense. JWP isn't going to waste his time with every jerk that walks in the door since I'm sure there are plenty of experienced fighters wanting to train with the legend.

Originally Posted by Sang

There is one gym I'd love to train at 45 minutes away though, Mad X. Its run by Eli Madigan's father and has an incredible fight team. The only issue is I'm still loyal to my current gym (i teach beginners and train there twice a week), and Mad X is invite only. Not the kind of place you can just train casually.

Boxing with a little BJJ on the side seems the best option, I'm hoping when i mention ring generalship he knows what the hell I'm talking about. We don't have the same quality of boxing coaches around here.

If your boxing coach doesn't know what ring generalship is all about I'm very sad for your area. Grizzled old boxing coaches with bottomless wells of knowledge are like a dime a dozen around here (not that they're all good coaches, but there are plenty who've been boxing or coaching for more than a few decades and can teach you a thing or two about the real nitty gritty of the sweet science).

Have my next fight booked, 8 man tournament and coming up soon. I've always wondered what it'd be like to fight 3 times in a night, can't wait. Videos will be going down for a while, I'm not exactly hard to find on the internet.

"Boxing is the art of hitting an opponent from the furthest distance away, exposing the least amount of your body while getting into position to punch with maximum leverage and not getting hit."
Kenny Weldon

"Boxing is the art of hitting an opponent from the furthest distance away, exposing the least amount of your body while getting into position to punch with maximum leverage and not getting hit."
Kenny Weldon

I got the call from my coach a couple of weeks ago telling me that someone had pulled out of the Super 8 and that they’d fly me to Melbourne all expenses paid if I wanted to take the fight.

I had a quick look at the line up, every fighter either an Aust title holder, previous title holder or having a KO record of 80%. In terms of experience I’d have the least by a long shot with them all having over 15 fights and a Thai in there with a suspected 50+ fights. Add to that the bonus of potentially being knocked out on national television? Hell yeah I’ll take it.

To make matters even more crazy my gym mate stood up to fill in for another drop out, taking on Dan Smyrk (35fights) for his 6th bout. He’d had a fight drop out himself and probably would have fought JWP just to get that last one for the year.

So we trained our arses off for 2 weeks, cut out the hard sparring and then the usual happened, I got injured. It seems I learnt nothing from breakfall practice in Judo because when I got tossed in the clinch I took 100% of the fall right on the tip of my elbow. I chipped it pretty bad, it felt all spongy and incredibly painful. There went my game plan of grappling my way to the final.

Flight day we were delayed an extra hour in traffic due to an accident and missed our check in time by several minutes. We ended up running into the weigh in after it had started with me having to cut 8 pounds of water weight, not fun. Luckily the local star Rohullah was also overweight so we had the pleasure of each other’s company in the sauna until well past 11 PM.

The fight show came up fast, everyone was nervous and friendly backstage since no one had a clue who was fighting who. We did the raffle in front of the sold out crowd and cameras, I think at this stage everyone was hoping not to get the Thai first up. I ended up getting the guy I’d been joking around with backstage for an hour straight, figures.

Right before going out my coach told me “He’s had a lot of cage fights so expect him to be a decent boxer”, no problem. 1st round I get tossed around in the clinch like a ragdoll and out kneed, with my elbow fractured I was completely unable to fight for position and leverage. 2nd round I managed to slightly out point him by making heavy use of feints and punches and then stole the 3rd with two head kicks at the end and a dump of my own right before the bell.

Close fight, he felt he’d won it and was pretty upset since he hadn’t lost a MT fight in a few year. I’m unsure if I significantly outfought him but I know how important it is to finish strong. I’m hoping we get to rematch in a 5 rounder sometime next year.

I think we had about 15 minutes before the next round, I iced up and had a cortisone/local shot in my elbow which made everything awesome. Next up for me was the guy I’d spent 3 hours in a sauna with and shared the Afghan food his mum had cooked for him.

Going out for this fight everything was different, I was still high as a kite from the adrenaline but now I was relaxed and really enjoying myself. The announcer called out my name and took creative licence by giving me the fight name “bonecrusher”. Oh well, it could have been worse. I think one guy in the back cheered for me, probably the coach of one of the other Queenslanders.

When they announced the other dude, the crowd roared and banged on tables, a few women exposed themselves and the camera zoomed straight to my face. Couldn’t help but laugh.

The fight went well, I was having so much fun every time I got hit with a decent shot to the head I smiled like a fool. This guy was known for his knockout power in our division and I wasn’t feeling a thing, I was getting a real feel for the next level of competition. I remember very little of the fight but apparently I lost the first by quite a bit, won the second and just lost the third.

He went on to lose to the Thai by points, he took one kick to the ribs which welted up so fast it looked like he’d been hit by an axe. My gym mate broke the other guys nose, kneed the guy in the head twice and lost the 5 rounder on points. There was hardly anything in the fight, my coach was very proud.

The after party was at a 10 million dollar mansion right on the water, hell of a way to end a crazy weekend.

"Boxing is the art of hitting an opponent from the furthest distance away, exposing the least amount of your body while getting into position to punch with maximum leverage and not getting hit."
Kenny Weldon

My last two fights will be shown on Foxtel on the 14th of Jan for any Kiwis/Aussies interested.

"Boxing is the art of hitting an opponent from the furthest distance away, exposing the least amount of your body while getting into position to punch with maximum leverage and not getting hit."
Kenny Weldon